Exploring the Important Role of Organizational Factors in IT Business Value: Taking a Contingency Perspective on the Resource‐Based View

Despite the importance to researchers and practitioners of how information technology (IT) contributes to organizational performance, there is an ongoing debate about the extent of IT business value (ITBV) and how to measure ITBV. Recently, a number of researchers have applied resource‐based view (RBV) and contingency theory to investigating ITBV, with mixed results. Researchers have started to recognize that ITBV is closely associated with the synergies created from IT and a variety of complementary organizational factors, which might be an alternative way to explain these mixed results. Through a review of the literature, this paper assesses the current level of knowledge in ITBV research. It identifies that significant progress has been made in the research domain, but that in‐depth inquiry into ITBV is still needed. Based on RBV and contingency theory, a research framework has been developed. The framework suggests that firms might be able to gain significant performance improvements if IT resources are in alignment with additional organizational factors (i.e. organizational strategy, organizational process, organizational culture, organizational structure). The authors believe that this framework will be valuable in assisting researchers and practitioners in understanding the complex ITBV process.     

Strategic human resource management: where have we come from and where should we be going?

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) implies a concern with the ways in which HRM is critical to organizational effectiveness. This straightforward assertion is examined in theory and through research evidence to reveal high levels of complexity in relation to how, when and why the interconnection between HRM and organizational outcomes is achieved. The two dominant normative models of 'best fit' and 'best practice' are considered. The paper concludes that the HR strategies of firms are heavily shaped by contextual contingencies, including national, sectoral and organizational factors. However, such a conclusion does not invalidate all 'best-practice' thinking. Although constrained in certain ways, underpinning principles of labour management still have relevance to practice as essential attributes of a firm's ability to compete in its chosen markets. The paper then considers the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm and asks whether this provides a better basis for the development of theory in SHRM and in understanding the contribution of HRM to the achievement of sustained competitive advantage. While limits to the utility of RBV in respect of SHRM theory are identified, important implications for research are signalled. Trends in the RBV literature are pushing all those interested in strategy towards studies of intellectual capital, learning processes and organizational adaptability. Researchers in HRM could, if they wished, play a central role in these developments because questions of how to attract, motivate and develop workers with critical and scarce abilities, and develop effective processes of work organization, must be fundamental to any model of knowledge-based competition. Greater progress will be made when organizations are studied in a much more interdisciplinary or systemic way.     

Critical success factors and green supply chain management proactivity: shedding light on the human aspects of this relationship based on cases from the Brazilian industry

Abstract

By applying the resources-based view (RBV) theory to green management, this study aims to analyse the relationship between critical success factors (CSFs) and the adoption of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices for some Brazil-based manufacturers of automotive batteries considered focal in their supply chains. It also analyses how human issues, known as green human resource management (GHRM) aspects, can help to increase the effectiveness of CSFs for GSCM strategies that are still not totally well-managed, justifying a RBV perspective. This research assumes that firms tend to be in different stages of GSCM development (more strategic or less strategic) and tests four research propositions to determine whether more proactive GSCM is related to higher levels of effectively managed CSFs. Three focal companies that operate in the Brazilian automotive battery industry were studied. Research results suggest that more proactive GSCM practices correlate to more effectively managed CSFs and to a greater support from GHRM. We argue that managers with a clear GHRM strategy will have more success in GSCM adoption, using more green training, green recruitment and selection, green performance evaluation and employee rewards.     

Understanding founder–CEO’s replacement in venture-backed companies: A theoretical and empirical analysis

This research provides an accurate picture of situations in which founder–CEOs are replaced (or not) by venture capitalists. Our analysis aims to go further than the schematic case of the founder being simply dismissed by investors in a conflictual context. We first review the literature dedicated to this subject in the light of the agency theory (AT) and the resource-based view (RBV). However, the limits of these theoretical frameworks lead us to investigate their extensions: the entrenchment theory (ET), the dynamic capabilities approach (DCA) and the cognitive governance perspective (CGP). In a second phase, in order to decode the replacement process, we designed an exploratory methodology based on qualitative data, thus deepening our understanding of the issues it entails in venture-backed companies. Finally, this field analysis allows us to build a typology of replacement scenarii, with each scenario being interpreted by combining relevant theories to explain all aspects of it. In line with the AT, the ET focuses on the FCs strategy to retain their position. The DCA analyses the CEOs’ resources from a dynamic angle, in accordance with the RBV. The CGP is mobilised to characterise a conflict originating in a lack of skills. These results lead us to rethink the role of time and the nature of conflicts in the relationships between FCs and venture capitalists.     

Only a matter of chance? How firm performance measurement impacts study results

Although strategic management research is well aware of the importance of construct measurement, surprisingly little rigor is applied regarding its core concept, firm performance. Using the example of the resource-based view (RBV), this paper demonstrates how divergence between theory-building and construct measurement regarding firm performance can produce misleading conclusions. The RBV seeks to explain value creation in the marketplace, yet empirical studies often measure various aspects of firm financial performance. Building on appropriation theory, I show that it is not possible to infer to changes in firm value creation from observed changes in firm financial performance measures and vice versa due to an omitted variable bias: the neglect of the relative bargaining power of stakeholders. This paper derives conclusions for research practice and suggests theoretically meaningful ways of bridging the gap between value creation and firm financial performance in the RBV framework.     

A review of outsourcing from the resource‐based view of the firm

The phenomenon of outsourcing is becoming increasingly widespread among organizations and is now one of the strategic decisions that attract the greatest interest from professionals and organizational scholars. The primary purpose of the paper is to contribute with a review of the principal works that address outsourcing from the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV). The paper begins by setting out the main premises of outsourcing and then presents the different concepts of outsourcing and proposes a concept that is more in line with the theoretical framework used. This is followed by an analysis of the principal differences and similarities of the treatments of outsourcing from the traditional perspective of the transaction costs economics theory (TCE) and from the more strategic and up‐to‐date RBV. The next section contains a review of the most significant theoretical and empirical works on outsourcing that address outsourcing from the RBV. The contributions are classified into two categories, depending on the objectives: works that study the propensity to outsource and works that study the relationship between the outsourcing decision and organizational performance. Finally, a framework is proposed that is based on the resource and capability view with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of outsourcing and facilitating future empirical works from the RBV that are complementary and examine issues of greater interest that have been less developed in the literature to date.     

Drivers and Performance Outcomes of Innovativeness: An Empirical Study

The issue of innovativeness within organizations has attracted considerable attention in the literature. However, limited knowledge exists about the drivers of and their simultaneous effects on innovativeness and the role of innovativeness in enhancing performance. We adopt the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and insights from the literature on capabilities to investigate specific capability types serving as antecedents to innovativeness and to examine its performance outcomes. From a sample of 218 Greek manufacturers, the results indicate that managerial, entrepreneurial and technical capabilities facilitate the establishment of innovativeness, which in turn enhances business performance. The study lends support to prior research that highlights the importance of innovativeness in enhancing organizational performance and sharpens understanding of the drivers of innovativeness and the way they collectively operate through innovativeness to boost performance. The study further provides new insights into the role of innovativeness from the perspective of the RBV, while highlighting certain firm capabilities that might both enable and impede competitive advantage and superior performance creation. As such, this study contributes to the effective management of the innovativeness process within organizations.     

In search of rigor, relevance, and legitimacy: what drives the impact of publications?

In this study, we introduce the concept of legitimacy to the rigor-relevance debate and investigate empirically how rigor, relevance, and legitimacy are related to the process of knowledge dissemination within a research field. We argue that this analysis has been a missing piece in the debate on rigor and relevance when institutional logics about what constitutes both elements lead researchers to act according to what they perceive to be appropriate behavior in the research field. We draw on insights from the micro and macro levels of institutional theory to show how researchers aiming to bestow legitimacy on their own work conform to these “rules of the game”. Using meta-analytical techniques, we focus on the field of strategic entrepreneurship and analyze how rigor- and relevance-related characteristics of studies in this field are linked to their legitimacy and therefore to the impact they have in the research community.     

企业经营原因不明中的企业家能力

产业组织理论将企业经营绩效的决定归因于外部因素,而企业的资源、能力观则试图从企业内部来解释经营绩效,其中,原因不明是一个重要的难以模仿的资源,成为企业获得持续竞争优势的重要基础。本文对原因不明的内涵、特征进行了探讨,指出对企业家能力的忽视是导致原因不明的重要原因,抓住了企业家因素,原因不明似乎可以得到解释了。     

Successful integration of target firms in international acquisitions: A comparative study in the Medical Technology industry

This paper explores approaches for integration of target firms in international acquisitions in the context of the Medical Technology (MT) industry. Recent research suggests that resource interactions present the primary activities in integration. With six in-depth case studies, this paper firstly reexamines the strategic resources in smaller units to build the foundation for later analysis. It then clarifies the concept of similarity and complementarity with two working definitions. After that, four integration approaches have been identified: capability maintenance, capacity building, product focus, and R&D focus. Finally, a two by two matrix is synthesized to reveal the nature of developing integration approaches from a resource-based view (RBV). Besides the theoretical contributions to acquisition literature, this study also has its compound managerial implications.     

East meets West: a case example of knowledge transfer

This article highlights some of the similarities and differences in management theory and practice between the UK and the Former Soviet Union (FSU) and Central and East European (CEE) states. It does so in the context of a debate over the appropriateness and extent of cultural dominance in knowledge transfer of theory and practice, which has occurred during the last decade, and which is still unresolved. It reviews a scheme for knowledge transfer which offered a flexible structure within which the organizers could amend their material in the light of their growing experience with the way in which the scheme operated, and whereby they might avoid some of the mistakes of cultural dominance made within other schemes offered elsewhere The Joint Industrial and Commercial Attachment Programme (JICAP), its structure, approach and some outcomes are outlined as a case example. Sponsored by the British Council to arrange visits by middle and senior managers from the post-command economies to the UK for intensive management training and work placement in an organization complementary to their home employment, JICAP was typical of the best Western thinking in management development of the time. The espousals and realities, the benefits and flaws in this approach are examined, drawing on the perceptions of the JICAP delegates themselves in terms of their personal and business development. Czarniawska's model of the travel of ideas (Czarniawska and Joerges 1996) is used as an organizing framework within which the problems of knowledge transfer, culturally dominant or maximally flexible, can be examined, and the underlying issues identified. This notion of flexibility, within which alternative perspectives can be negotiated and new meanings created, constitutes the main contribution proposed by this paper.     

Planning reform beyond planning: the debate on an integrated Environment and Planning Act in the Netherlands

Land-use plans serve a dual function. On the one hand, they are programmes for future development, plans for action. On the other hand, they have a regulative function in relation to construction and land use. This paper investigates how the interplay between these functions is playing a role in the current debate about the new integrated Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) in the Netherlands. Initially, the government proposed abolishing local land-use plans and replacing them with a system of by-laws. However, this proposal did not survive the debate on this bill. This paper will shed light on the relationships between planning and regulation by analysing that debate.     

The ethics of health care system reform

The United States is now engaged in a momentous national debate about health care. How can we provide the best care possible while simultaneously containing cost (to promote the general economic integrity of society) and somehow maintain a semblance of a free health care marketplace. This is not just a political question; it is also a question of ethics. It is an ethical consideration because the current debate is not just about designing or promoting health care systems that can best address our concerns for costs, quality, and accessibility. It appears that at least some participants in the debate would not stop at arguing their beliefs as valid; they would make their beliefs law. Some urge the creation of the right to health care as a matter of law. There are significant differences between beliefs and rights, however, and they need to be considered carefully in the ongoing debate over the future of this country's health care delivery and financing system.     

From Temporary Competitive Advantage to Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Both industrial organization theory (IO) and the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV) have advanced our understanding of the antecedents of competitive advantage but few have attempted to verify the outcome variables of competitive advantage and the persistence of such outcome variables. Here by integrating both IO and RBV perspectives in the analysis of competitive advantage at the firm level, our study clarifies a conceptual distinction between two types of competitive advantage ? temporary competitive advantage and sustainable competitive advantage ? and explores how firms transform temporary competitive advantage into sustainable competitive advantage. Testing of the developed hypotheses, based on a survey of 165 firms from Taiwan's information and communication technology industry, suggests that firms with a stronger market position can only attain a better outcome of temporary competitive advantage whereas firms possessing a superior position in technological resources or capabilities can attain a better outcome of sustainable competitive advantage. More importantly, firms can leverage a temporary competitive advantage as an outcome of market position to improving their technological resource and capability position, which in turn can enhance their sustainable competitive advantage.     

The Nature,Social Organization and Promotion of Management Research: Towards Policy

This paper argues for the distinctiveness of management research and develops a perspective concerning management research policy. It argues that the key defining characteristic of management research is its applied nature, and that its central concern should be ‘the general (engineering) problem of design’. Because a key goal of management research is to improve the relationship between theory and practice, a fundamental concern lies with its diverse nature and the consequential difficulty of integration of sub-disciplines, as well as with the issue of the relevance and the application of findings. As a policy paper, it aims to introduce a limited number of analytical frameworks in order to develop a policy position, thus helping frame the debate concerning the role of management research. Specifically, it achieves this, first by exploring the ontology of management research, examining its form, features, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies using Becher's conceptual schema for exploring the nature of disciplines; second by identifying a requisite form of social organization to support management research activity using the Gibbons et al. taxonomy of knowledge production systems; and finally, by identifying some conclusions, research policy implications, and suggesting a set of policy propositions concerning the conduct of management research.     

基于资源观点的联盟中价值创造研究综述

基于资源观点对战略联盟环境下价值创造的研究成果进行了综述. 首先从租金收入的差 异入手,比较了基于资源观点的不同理论分支的特点和区别,在此基础上对联盟环境下价值创 造方式的内容和特点进行了总结,讨论了不同价值创造方式的区别及其相互关系,最后对现有 的研究成果进行了评价并指出了未来可能的研究方向.     

利用产品塑造品牌:品牌的产品意义及其理论发展

在品牌理论发展和品牌营销实践中,一直存在轻"实"重"虚"的取向,导致出现轻视乃至偏离产品这一核心的"空心化"现象,对品牌产品认知的研究和营销应用尤显得不足和落后。该文以社会认知理论和现象学访谈方法,发现和定义了消费者通过意义建构而形成的品牌产品知识体系,并从其知识内容、水平、结构、发生条件、性质、隐含价值、前后向变量等方面提出了初步的理论框架。研究结果扩展了对品牌产品认知的理解只限于品牌物理特征联想及品牌功能评价的传统边界,对重新理解、定义品牌产品的营销战略价值和管理体系,促进品牌理论和品牌营销的平衡发展提供了新的依据和启示。     

Studying Board Context, Process and Dynamics: Some Challenges for the Future

This paper contributes to the timely debate on research into boards and their effectiveness by focusing on context, process and time, which are crucial to understanding board dynamics. It also explores key principles of board process research, and advocates the need to strengthen its theoretical and methodological foundations in order to challenge the analytically particular assumptions of agency theory. The paper concludes that there is still much more to be researched in this area and encourages work that explores variation in board process and director effectiveness in different organizational contexts, as well as seeking to go beyond the board to address their impact and effectiveness in the broader organizational and external context.     

Conceptualizing the Development of Strategic Ideas: A Grounded Theory Analysis

This paper presents the findings of a grounded theory study on the development of strategic ideas in a multinational organization. By drawing on the rich data generated from this longitudinal in‐depth field study, this paper provides a theoretical framework for the development of strategic ideas. The theoretical framework developed offers an interesting and useful way of understanding and explaining the complex process of the early steps of the strategic decision process. This research illustrates the development of strategic ideas through strategic debate, the key theme that emerged from the study and the interaction of its four constituent themes: strategic warriors, patterns of interaction, strategic language and strategic syntheses. Drawing on the empirical findings, this study also discusses some implications for developing strategic ideas in managerial practice.     

开放型商业模式NICE属性与价值创造关系的实证研究

企业竞争优势或价值创造的源泉在哪里,或者企业绩效异质性的成因是什么?这一问题一直是战略管理领域的研究焦点。移动互联网时代,企业纷纷通过重塑商业模式来实现转型升级或跨界发展,并将其作为价值创造和竞争优势的一种重要来源。因此,本文旨在以开放型商业模式为研究对象,探讨其内在属性与价值创造之间的关系。首先,本文阐述开放型商业模式的内涵及构成;接着,识别出其内在属性特征,即新颖性(N)、锁定性(I)、互补性(C)、效率性(E);同时,重点借助战略网络理论、新木桶理论、平台经济学等理论基础论证NICE与价值创造间的关系及背后的作用机理,提出理论假设;最后,运用调查问卷和结构方程模型的方法实证检验,且演绎结论的管理含义。本文所使用的数据来源于中国最大的服务交易平台:猪八戒网和EMBA、MBA、EDP等项目课堂。研究表明,开放型商业模式新颖性与企业价值正相关、互补性与顾客价值正相关、效率性与企业价值和伙伴价值均呈正相关关系;而新颖性与顾客价值及伙伴价值正相关;互补性与企业价值及伙伴价值呈正相关关系等结论未得到印证。本文的研究回答了"企业竞争优势或价值创造源泉在哪里?"这一问题,并且本文的理论机理分析和实证结论有利于指导企业创新商业模式并获取竞争优势的战略决策。